Herbert Louie Case

After reading the five most recent Herbert Lourie Lectures, I decided to focus on the article written by Judy Feder titled "Our Troubled Health Care System: Why is it so hard to fix? Judy Feder is one of the most recognized health care experts on the issues facing those that are uninsured and Medicaid/Medicare. She is also, one of the nation's leaders in health care policy, particularly to understand and improve our current health care system.

The key points in this lectures was an eye opener for me and the realization that the US health care delivery system does not provide efficient, consistent or high quality medical care and individuals was a sticker shock. One of the major issues with health care in our country today is the ever increasing cost which is most likely going to affect the insured, if we want the uninsured to get coverage. Our current health care system did not happen by accident but dates back to the 1940's with the growth of private health insurance through jobs that provided fringe benefits and favorable tax breaks hence, the birth of employer health insurance: which is one reason our system didn't enact a National Health Insurance policy. Medicare came into effect during the 1960's to provide coverage for the elderly and Medicaid followed in 1965 to off-set individuals who were unlikely to get coverage from employers for example, their children, pregnant women and individuals with disabilities.

With the growth of the population, those that had health insurance noticed a decrease in their benefits and public programs such as Medicaid and Medicare failed to fill this gap which left the people with the realization that a Universal health care system should be implemented so that every individual in the United States would get coverage.

The 1993-1994 Clinton health care policy was implemented to foster a Universal health care system to provide a plan that would be efficient, fair and effective. It was designed to make all employers provide coverage to their employees and to lock in benefits for those existing employees that had coverage along with the cost of health insurance for the employer. The idea of a simpler, fairer system was not well received as opponents challenged it as rationing health care, which scared off voters that they may be worse off.

A good health care plan should be able to satisfy the three AAA's (adequacy, affordability and availability). A health care plan should provide a broad spectrum of medical services when an individual gets sick, cost sharing/premiums should be reasonable in relation to one's income and lastly individuals should be given choices of different health care plans that provide adequate and affordable health insurance regardless of age or health status.

John Oberlander mentioned in his article "Learning from the failure in health care reform" that worsening conditions in the health care system have triggered renewed interest in comprehensive heath care reform and the Clinton plan was envisioned as a synthesis of liberal ends (universal coverage) and conservative means that could break through the stalemate on health care reform and attract majority support in Congress. He went on to explain that health care reformers must thread the needle by persuading the anxious insured that reform is in their best interest and that the uninsured can be covered without disturbing(and ideally while enhancing) their coverage, but